


Take the Road Again

by louise_lux



Series: Ne me Quitte pas [2]
Category: Saiyuki
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-23
Updated: 2012-04-23
Packaged: 2017-11-04 05:11:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louise_lux/pseuds/louise_lux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hakkai has been back for two months.  Someone-- or something-- wants Gojyo's attention and he is losing sleep over it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take the Road Again

It sang to him in his sleep.

Gojyo didn't understand how it could; it was only a piece of paper. So, it was a strong, cloth-backed piece of paper that had a strange indestructible sheen to it. Water and blood dripped right off it. So did tea and sake. 

"It's wipe-clean," Hakkai had said just last week, watching it from across the table like it might bite him. "The gods are more thoughtful than you'd expect." 

He looked at it more than he should, recently, as winter drew on. It tugged him in much the same way as Sanzo did, with a sense that it might lash out at any time. Maybe once a week he took it out of the sock drawer where he kept it and held it in his palm. Some days it was warm, like skin was warm. Some days it was deadly cold, like the stones that he and Hakkai had used to line the front path last week. They were frost-rimed now and they glittered in the morning sun.

"So, how is everything?" Li asked, one morning in the teachers' room. He was smiling. 

"Everything's good," Gojyo said, peering at him over his coffee. 

"You look so tired these days." Li sipped his tea and with an innocent expression. "Not getting enough sleep, Gojyo-san? I hope your house guest isn't keeping you up too late?"

Gojyo swallowed a mouthful too fast and winced when it burnt his throat. "I'm fine!"

Li laughed and pulled over the game of shogi they'd started yesterday. "I've been chatting with Hakkai-san regularly at the market. He's an interesting fellow, Gojyo. Just last week he gave me a formula for a kaolin skin rub that both heals burns and 'soothes the wrinkles of aging skin'. He said I'd probably find it useful."

"Yeah. He's—interesting."

"I'm happy you're happy," Li said, more quietly. "Now, who was black and who was white?"

***

That night it was so loud that he rolled out of bed and padded over to the drawer where lived. Its voice was all around him, only it wasn't really a clear voice, saying words. It was like hearing someone talking through a wall; a muted falling and rising tone. He pulled open the draw. Over on his cushion, Jeep squeaked faintly and raised his head.

"You’re driving me nuts," he said, glaring down at it. If he'd had a gun, he'd have shot it. And that was a weird thought to have. He blinked at it. "He's not here. So stop that."

The sutra trembled, all by itself. Ugh, that was creepy. He watched it for a second, half hypnotised and wanting to see if it would do anything else, then shook himself and closed the draw with a small bang. The voice faded away and the room returned to silence.

"Gojyo?" Hakkai said, from the bed. 

"Nothin'". _Just talking to my sutra, dear_. 

His arms were a solid mass of raised hairs. He hurried back to the bed and crawled in under the covers. Hakkai turned to face him, eyes open and arms reaching out. He was a mass of shaggy hair and dark eyes and striped skin, like some kind of beast. Gojyo drew a shaky breath as he slid into Hakkai's arms and Hakkai moved on top of him. His cock was stiff—fuck, _again_ \-- and it pressed straight and hot against Gojyo's belly. 

"You woke me," Hakkai said, his voice softly complaining. He pushed down with his hips. The ink black tips of his hair brushed Gojyo's chest. "I want you."

Hakkai didn't do anything by halves, Gojyo thought. Even more so now. "Hakkai—it's three am."

"So?" Hakkai nuzzled at his neck and made a soft, deeply erotic sound, like Gojyo was an unbearable temptation. "Oh, why are you so cold?" he whispered. "You feel like you've been in the snow. Let me warm you."

It was this kind of thing that was driving Gojyo half crazy, every night, every morning. Hakkai was hot, burning hot sometimes, with smooth skin and deft hands and a quick clever tongue that made Gojyo cry out into the pillow. 

Hakkai cupped his jaw in one hand, and ran the tips of his fingers across the faint numb tramlines of Gojyo's scars. Hakkai's eyes were shadowed in the faint light. Although it was really too dark to tell, Gojyo could imagine the soft and melting look in them perfectly, because he'd seen it there so often these past two months. It was always such a contrast to the almost frightening grace and precision of his lust. 

"Do you want me?" Hakkai whispered. He always asked. 

Gojyo nodded. He ran his hands down over Hakkai's back, from wide shoulders to narrow waist. Hakkai shivered under his touch. He thought about all the other people Hakkai had slept with. Hakkai had told him about them, in detail and one by one. Blow by blow, as it were. That'd been a strange day – one endless session in bed with the door locked and them only getting up to heat sake and make toast. Gojyo had made a better listener than he'd ever thought he could be. He'd wanted to hear everything.

"I want to fuck you," Hakkai said, and that coarse word from his lips—Gojyo couldn't get used to it. For one swooning moment the voice of the sutra came back, raised and high like it was excited too. Hakkai slid a hand between their bellies and found Gojyo's hardening cock. "Would you like that?"

"That's—yeah, oh…" Gojyo said. "Yeah."

He clung on to Hakkai's shoulders with his fingers, like he was clinging to a precipice. Hakkai's shoulders were as hard as stone, but warm and smooth and living. He still had freckles on his shoulders, under the vine patterns. He still had his scar and he had had a new thread of silver hair at his right temple. The skin on his feet was hard and his knee made that weird clicking noise sometimes. Gojyo held him close and breathed in the scent of his skin.

"Why did you wake up?" Hakkai asked. 

"Doesn't matter."

The sutra's voice raised for a moment in a high excited muttering and then it faded away entirely. 

"So much doesn't matter," Hakkai said.

Gojyo thought about Hakkai on the road, alone, and gripped him harder. "No, some stuff does."

Hakkai dipped his head to kiss the hollow of Gojyo's throat and touched the tip of his tongue to Gojyo's skin, a cautious lick, as if Gojyo might be something unknown to him, or potentially dangerous. 

"Why did you wake up?" Hakkai asked, again. 

It was only going to keep on happening. "It's the sutra."

Hakkai pulled back to look into his eyes. "What?"

"It's—This is going to sound nuts."

"Please, try me," Hakkai said, and kissed the corner of his mouth.

"I can hear it."

"What does it say?" Hakkai said, like this wasn't any news to him. 

Gojyo shook his head. "I can't hear clear words." 

"Perhaps you should pay more attention next time."

Hakkai seemed to be only getting heavier. Their skin stuck together, damp with sweat and heat. Gojyo inched his thighs apart. He dug his hands into Hakkai's hair and gripped hard, two handfuls until Hakkai hissed out. He surged over Gojyo, his chest heaving, and this was what Gojyo wanted, this strength and power. 

"Come on," Gojyo said. 

"You can't stop me," Hakkai said, with the faint hint of teeth dragging across Gojyo's skin, and the darker hint of a smile. 

The night closed down around them to only this. "I won't. I wouldn't." Very little had ever felt so true. "Fuck me. Fuck me."

He hadn't said that to anyone before this and it still shocked him to hear it from his own mouth. With Li, Gojyo'd always been the guy. Despite the cold air, his skin burnt up. Hakkai was hot and all over him, grinding pressure on his stomach and hips. They rolled on the bed, limbs tangling together.

Hakkai bit down just at the place he'd bitten last night. His fingers were knowing, and Gojyo had had plenty of opportunities to learn that recently. Trimmed-down claws were blunt and smooth, fingers long and penetrating. He let go of Gojyo's cock and reached further down.

"Move," he murmured.

Gojyo raised his knees, one to each side of Hakkai's body, gripping tight. He was still slick from before. Hakkai moaned through gritted teeth and raised himself up above Gojyo. His dick felt huge, opening Gojyo up again and pushing inside, stretching him wide. 

"Oh, yeah," Gojyo said, more of a moan than anything else. Hakkai didn't waste time, and began to move with powerful lithe twists of his hips. "Oh _fuck_."

Gojyo reached up and dragged Hakkai's mouth to his, wanting the taste of him, wanting to drown in him. He shook from each thrust Hakkai gave him, until they both froze, muscles tightening, groaning like they were in pain, deep into each other's mouths. 

They stayed like that until they fell asleep again, Hakkai on top of him, neither of them suggesting moving or cleaning up or anything. In two hours time he had to get up. The sutra was silent. 

***

He woke to his alarm clock beeping in his ear. Hakkai was sprawled half over his chest, one arm over his stomach. His face was buried in Gojyo's neck and his hair spread in a warm shaggy mass. When Gojyo tried to drag himself up, Hakkai's arm tightened. Gojyo fell back with a sigh and curled into the warmth.

The sun wasn't even up yet. The hot water tank was gurgling, ready for Gojyo's shower. He turned over to face Hakkai. Hakkai stroked a hand over Gojyo's hair at the front, clearing it from where it was beginning to grow back into his eyes.

"Will you grow it long again?" he asked. 

"Dunno." He pushed into Hakkai's hand. "Depends how cold it gets this year." 

"Very cold, I think."

"D'you think it suits me short?"

Hakkai looked him over. "Honestly?"

"Yeah, be honest."

"I like it either way."

Gojyo rolled over on top of him and grinned down. "Is that right?"

It was so good to see Hakkai smile like that, free of worry – he never got tired of it. He leaned down to kiss Hakkai's lips and drank in his soft moan. 

"Don't go to work today," Hakkai said, reaching up to touch him. "Gojyo."

"Don't make it more difficult to get up." He kissed Hakkai again, until Hakkai eased him away. 

"I've been thinking..." 

"Mmm?"

"The sutra. Perhaps its recent—restlessness--means Sanzo's coming back?" 

"Huh. I never thought of that. You mean like, it's getting excited about daddy coming home?"

"Something like that. Although in that relationship, who's the parent and who's the child?"

He bumped his forehead to Hakkai's. "Don't mess with my mind so early in the morning."

He slid out of bed a little while later, when Hakkai was dozing again. He washed and got his clothes on and made lunch for himself while Hakkai slept on, rolled up in a tight bundle on the futon. Maybe they should get a new bed, Gojyo thought. A proper bed like people bought when they expected to stay put for a long time. 

He hurried down the lane still thinking about that as the day came on, pale grey and misty. Were they going to stay here? If Sanzo was coming back, would he want them to come to Chang An? Like a drip of water down his spine, he heard the faint shrill of a voice. 

He thought about it a lot that day. His kids were noisier than ever because he kept losing track of things. He forgot to set homework for Class Three. Li crushed him at their shogi game at lunch.

"How's Hakkai-san?" Li asked.

"Yeah," Gojyo said, around his noodles. "Good. You know."

"Settling in?"

"Something like that."

"It's a good time to settle, in winter. Are you going to bring him to the school festival?"

Gojyo thought about the parents being introduced to Hakkai. Maybe he could get Hakkai to wear his limiters. But, no—that was bullshit. Hakkai was who he was.

"He used to be a teacher," Gojyo said. He hadn't meant to say that. "Before."

"Oh. Before."

He'd never told Li anything. Gojyo gripped his coffee mug. "Before we went to India in his car that's really a dragon, with a sanzo priest and—and a—a damn magical monkey god. Goku."

Li's hand slipped on the piece he was moving and his jaw slackened. "That was _you_? I read about that in the newspapers."

"You did?"

"I'm not surprised you don't want to talk about it."

***

He went shopping after work, because Hakkai wasn't quite so good at that these days. Sometimes, he'd read all day and forget that there was no tea or they were out of rice. Other times, Gojyo would come home and the dirty pots were still in the sink from the day before. Gojyo kind of liked it. He pictured himself yelling at Hakkai to pick up his dirty socks or tidy the kitchen. The vision was so strong that he stopped in the street outside the bakery and laughed out loud. Mr Wen gave him a baffled look and shook his head. 

He arrived back to find Hakkai at the kitchen table with the sutra unrolled in front of him. He was staring at it, his hands neatly folded. 

"Hello, Gojyo."

"Hey. What're you doing?"

Hakkai reached out and touched Gojyo's thigh, just one small touch like he wanted to make sure Gojyo really existed. "I was hoping it might say something."

Gojyo pursed his lips. "No luck, huh?"

"Decidedly not. It really does talk to you?"

Hey, I'm not making it up. Damn thing wakes me up at night. Among other things."

"Oh," Hakkai said, with a slow smile. He bit his lower lip and the air in Gojyo's lungs got rapidly thinner. "Yes. You do look tired today. You don't-- mind?"

"No," Gojyo said. "Are dumplings okay for dinner?"

"Delicious," Hakkai said, looking up at him with parted lips. "Dumplings are perfect for cold weather. But-- will you make them?"

Gojyo watched him. His body still ached in certain places. He couldn't help but look to the bed, where the sheets were still tangled. Hakkai's eyes followed his gaze. "Sure I will. You want to help me?"

"No," Hakkai said. "I want to watch you."

Later, Gojyo changed the sheets and made both beds. Hakkai watched him do that too. Gojyo'd given up sleeping in his own room. It was cold and these days smelled of damp however hard he scrubbed the mould off the place where the outside pipe leaked. The living room smelled like Hakkai and cooking and tea, like their old place used to. He imagined having to move out and get on the road again. 

It woke him again that night. It was louder than ever. Gojyo lay tangled up with Hakkai and listened, hard. He couldn't hear anything clearly, but he got an odd urge to go over there and slap something with a paper fan. Goku's face was right there, front and centre of his thoughts. Kanzeon had said there was no way to undo what she'd done. He wondered if that was true. He shook his head and curled his arm around Hakkai's shoulders, holding him closer.

He lay listening for so long and so intently that when Hakkai said: "What is it?" in his ear, he nearly screamed. 

"The thing," he said. He realised he was speaking under his breath in case it heard. 

"It's awake?" Hakkai said, also quietly. His lips touched Gojyo's skin as he spoke, and he curled closer.

"That's a creepy way of looking at it," Gojyo said. "But yeah. Apparently so."

They were silent again for a short while. Gojyo ran his hand over Hakkai's arm, fingers skimming the sharp point of his elbow and the hard line of muscle in his forearm, the span of his hand. It was easy to forget that Hakkai was a killing machine. 

He ran his hand back up and into Hakkai's hair and Hakkai sighed softly and laid his head on Gojyo's chest, right over his heart. The mutter of the sutra drifted out and back like waves lapping a beach. It was muffled, with a peevish edge to it, like someone complaining about the price of tea in the local grocer's shop.

"Do you think it could be lonely?" Hakkai said, after a little while of this. He sounded sleepy and fuzzy. Gojyo touched the pointed tip of one ear. It was cold.

"Lonely? For Sanzo?"

"He is its guardian after all."

"Maybe it misses all the yelling and gunshots."

Hakkai was about as close as he could get without actually flattening himself to Gojyo's body, but he somehow managed to shift closer. "It probably does," he said. 

"Should I get up and-- see to it?"

"What would you do?" Hakkai said. 

"Ah—Good question."

Hakkai tightened his arm around Gojyo's waist. "It's like having a baby, isn’t it?" he said, sounding happy. "Being woken in the night for feeds and nappy changing."

He peered down at the top of Hakkai's head, like he could see into his thoughts. "If that thing starts to need nappies, I'm posting it the hell away from me."

He felt the soft vibration of Hakkai's laughter. Gojyo yawned and moved his fingers through Hakkai's hair, over and over, like stroking a cat. Hakkai wasn't asleep though. He was planting small faint kisses on Gojyo's neck.

"You want to move back to Chang An?" Gojyo said, eventually. 

"Should we?" said Hakkai. 

"I think it's trying to tell us something."

"Well, you'd know, if anyone would," Hakkai said, stretching against him. 

Gojyo thought about it. He'd been thinking about it for a long time. "When he gets back, he might need us. There's probably stuff we have to do."

"We can pick up our old lives."

Gojyo squeezed him tight until he let out a breathless gasp. "Nah, let's just keep the new ones."

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this story for the lovely Smillaarq, who won me over at Livelongnmarry on Livejournal. I'm glad she did, because I very much enjoyed writing this. She mentioned how she wanted something to balance out the loneliness and sadness of their time apart in the original story and that idea drew me very much. I wanted to know more about schoolteacher Gojyo and his new and rather different life of domesticity with Hakkai.


End file.
